From Climate Advocacy to Public Engagement: An Exploration of the Roles of Environmental Non-Governmental Organisations

The capacity of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to encourage public engagement with climate protection is analysed through a conceptual framework focused on six advocacy functions: issue framing, knowledge generation and dissemination, attribution of responsibility, lobbying, public mobilisation and agenda setting. This framework is used to organise and interpret the results of a fieldwork study of environmental NGOs, conducted in France, Germany and the UK. Key findings include the importance of the cross-linkage of climate with other categories of issue, NGO stress on knowledge as a precursor to action, a ‘politics of accountability’ in which the attribution of responsibility paves the way for making political demands, a preference for multi-layered lobbying, where process can be as important as product, and the need to adjust NGO mobilisation and agenda setting strategies in the aftermath of the 2009 Copenhagen negotiations and the financial crisis